Rexy

Well I live in the UK, and I took part in my first OCR Secret Santa last year shipping gifts trans-Atlantic to BardicKnowledge. Typically it should take no longer than 2 weeks to ship from America to Europe (and the other way round); though, it should definitely be a good idea to pay attention to when the last post is.

I'm definitely giving this a go. My address hasn't changed since last year; do I still need to PM it you anyway?

You know, you seem to be the most awesome dad ever if things like THAT happened to your child.

When you said 'lullaby', this was the first thing that came to mind. In fact, you can't go wrong with most of Iggy Koopa's material; very calming, gentle, and sometimes minimalist too.

I confirmed on my Facebook page just now that my Halloween costume this year is Rouge the Bat. I think I'd be tidier on the face paint tomorrow night though

So I noticed this when going around for higher quality encodings of mixes to replace the lower ones prior to the VBR1 switch - apparently, the final 13 seconds of DarkeSword's "Lore Hunter" are cut off abruptly. I'm not so sure if it's an error on Shariq's or Larry's end, but I thought it should still be brought up. Hoping this would get fixed as soon as you can.

I admit I've been kind of out of it, but since being laid off last week (which I know, it sucks ) I've at least seen one benefit in going out for long walks more often. The tooth itself has recovered, a bit too late to seriously make an impact with the pushups, but I guess I'll be ready for the next challenge.

You know, just looking down the list, I'm somehow excited to see how Brandon tears up the final boss JP side. Source tune to me was just plain epic to begin with, and I've got high hopes for him to pull this bad boy off

I'm going to a costume ball on the night. But I won't reveal my costume until it's fully complete. It's a fun one, though.

Wow - looks like someone ended up going for the custom game soundtrack! Right at the last minute too - this'll be a treat to see go down

https://t.co/sAGfoHmc Tracks used: * "The Wicked Wild" from Sonic and the Secret Rings * Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" When Saturday Night SEGA broadcasted last week, and "The Wicked Wild" ended up being on the playlist for that episode, Gavvie remarked in the following talkbed that he thought that would work well with some Will Smith rhymes over the top of it. This ended up being the results of that experiment. Don't think anything else needs to be added other than its sheer hilarity. Thank you

I got to have to hand it to Neblix - definitely one of his best works! I'm also keeping this one fairly brief as well, which is rare, but this managed to intertwine both sources well while managing to keep with the more spacy aspects of the source. Neblix may have told me that he believed that "Blackout Tower" for the previous GRMRB was amongst his best works, but I believe that structurally he has managed to kick it up to eleven and involved a significantly more engaging progression throughout its duration. It's also amongst one of his sharpest productions too; everything has a lot of punch, sounds clear and dynamic, and it's hard to believe all this through comparing this and his starting tracks when he got involved as well. What amazes me more is how much more consistent he's been getting at the writing aspect in such a short space of time. Let me be blunt here - "Heaven Awaits" interpreted the Prelude well and had a firmly produced vision, but to me the writing just felt too messy to really appreciate it all that much, and strangely he felt the same way whilst in conversation with him. Over time though, his writing methods have been getting more and more polished and engaging, and between this and his efforts with Plug Man in the GRMRB, I believe his works are becoming increasingly more accessible and all around fun to listen to, and I really hope he keeps up this trend. Who knows, maybe in the next two years he may even give brother DarkeSword a run for his money

Oh come on, maybe being in the Siberian wastes can be a good thing in taking an extra step in badass. Maybe in the years you'd end up training in a

You know, I almost said Sonic Heroes myself; but I couldn't really complain if I just found the special stages too hard at the time. Salluz brought in a good argument though, even though I feel that Sonic had been in deeper ruts than that O.o

I believe he's looking more in the line of this for a furry fetish. O_o*

I can list a few others from past experiences. Now, out here in this corner of the web, I'm arguably OCR's biggest fan of Crash Bandicoot. True, the series saw a slight dip of quality coming through the PS2 days (though the blow was easened with Vicarious Vision's good-yet-safe handheld entries), but there's one game in that entire series that came off as a bigger disappointment than anything else - Crash Boom Bang! on the DS. I was expecting the series to finally show some improvement through the hands of Dimps, whom I respected well with what they did through Sonic Rush, but with such an awkward execution all around and most of the mini-games themselves being broken as hell, not to mention the weakest overall soundtrack for me, it came off as just a bland party game with Crash's mug plastered all over it. Thankfully the series redeemed itself with the Titans titles, which introduced my younger cousins to Crash (albeit considerably re-designed), though with no new game since 2008 I'm waiting anxiously to see if anything more can be done with it. And onto his PS1 little brother, Spyro the Dragon. Like Crash, that had some great PS1 titles and some off-moments in the next generation upwards. Enter the Dragonfly tried to cripple my sanity, but then I played the GameCube version years later and found it to be a lot less broken. But Spyro: Shadow Legacy on the DS (again...), on the other hand, seriously went through very little testing and could be seen as more broken than even the PS2 version of ETD, and a lot of the charm for the Spyro series tended to have watered down considerably just by looking at the levels and story progression, which in itself was bland as heck. Heck, they apparently turned Spyro into a silent protagonist - not the spunky little guy that I went through my adolescence with. I almost abandoned the series outright there and then, but thankfully the Legend of Spyro trilogy rekindled my interest in spite of the rift it caused between the fanbase. And I've enjoyed playing the Guitar Hero series over the years as well - definitely a good thing to blast through on a casual basis on those plastic instruments. But I got to say I wasn't really won over with Guitar Hero Van Halen - not so much due to the guitar charts (hey, at least I can pass Eruption on Expert!), but more likely due to the terrible graphical presentation in comparison to other titles in the series and really poor song choices on the band's part. So it's fair to say it didn't get much love from me in comparison to other games. o_O

Probably depends on how you see things. But it's always a good idea to elaborate on things regardless, so we'll see. Anyway, I have bumped OCR1396 - Doom "Ghosts of Mars"! The new oldness is now OCR0938 - Star Control II "Hyperspace Electro Blast". Go get it!

Let me say this first - in the years since the release for The Dark Side of Phobos, I've been able to keep a hold on a good portion of the tracks for being able to create such involving and fitting atmospheres at the time, regardless of any nostalgic connection to the source material. Navi's track was among them, not only having that kind of quality amongst the Doom project's offering, but also doing a complete 180 in regards to how he generally approaches his work. And I have to say that even today, it holds up really strong E2M4 as a source is a difficult one to arrange due to how minimalist and suspenseful it is, but what he did was turned it into something more dynamic and frightening while still maintaining the source's core elements. This is noted with the use of the altered choir melody providing the original's pizzicato line in a slightly modified form, adding some form of hopeful tone, which is later echoed with the glockenspiel at 2:45 with the more minimalist progression sandwiched between the major climaxes of the track. In spite of the melodic components, there's been a lot to express fear with more atonal passages within backing tracks, which appears to be a far cry from the chromatic harmonies of the source material but it still works in providing its atmosphere. I say that in regards to source usage, it isn't exactly outright and can be difficult to pick out at first, but what is there was used wisely for the arrangement's scope. Even the production held up well over time. Sure, some of the samples like the choir and strings may appear to be showing their age now, but some of the techniques used here, from the subtle high-grated pads, the vinyl bookending it and a lot of the swelled metals managed to contribute something more unique on a technical front at the time of the album's release. The two sharp rises in tempo are two of the most identifiable components of the track for me - that with what's going on with the more organic instrumentation really ends up taking "They're Coming to Get You" to a very literal meaning, and is thus easily bound to grab the attention of the listeners. Considering the track is 7 years old, these tricks sound really impressive and have done a lot to make it stand out among the other tracks on DSoP. Even today I still have it on my iPod playlist in spite of Navi taking more conventional mixing methods as of late, and that's a testament to how firm it felt to me over the years. If you haven't grabbed DSoP yet, now's a good time - could even be perfect for Halloween!

Chernabogue, due to falling sick these past couple of weeks, I don't think I am going to make the deadline. Don't panic - I should be able to have a proof of concept before the month is out.

You guys had me at maximum attention around Star Light Zone. Either way, loved it during the DoD; still loving it now. Nice work!

A push-up challenge eh? Consider me interested. I may need to wait a bit longer until I'm okay to exercise properly again (had a tooth extraction last week x_x), but I'm keen to see what can be done.

That's why I have been wanting to speak to Matt about this. No one has sent me any kind of message otherwise. Though my plans were originally to get this started up not long after Sonic Zone, however, other commitments ended up taking over completely. Between the invite to the Sonic Paradox Remix Shorts before the contest's end, some visual work for OCR's recent US panels, preparation for Alcon in September and a handful of other projects I still need to finish tracks for, I hadn't had any time to look back. I feel sorry if I disappointed anyone, but sadly this is how things go. I still think a project of this kind of scope should go ahead, and make it a real token of love towards the games' scores. I'll do anything possible to help out either way, though I honestly think it will thrive better via someone who's been supportive to mixer development for some time. No matter what, I'd definitely like to see SuperiorX having a staff role in this, whether it be assisting or leading the whole thing. And I'd definitely do whatever possible to help out the process, whether it be through contributing a couple of tracks, potential co-directing, public relations (hey, I've become a regular listener into Radio SEGA's weekend shows ) or something of that kind of nature.

I don't know about that, Gario - to me that time has felt considerably shorter, more likely around 6-9 months depending on how long they spent being judged. If we're referring about a year's average, I think that applies more to the date of the track's submission. But either way, I would say that if it's been around 12-18 months since you've sent them and you have concern about what's happening, then it's a good idea to message Larry about it. But since he responded swiftly, I guess all I can say at this moment in time is to "keep your pants on" and just anticipate what's coming next

I thought Robbie didn't send "I Lost My Balls In Moscow" because the source was a Russian folk song anyway? It's still a great track that managed to stand the test of time

Joined the group! Let's see how this thing develops over time